Denial
by Scribbler
Summary: Bumblebee hates Speedy. Or so she thinks. Speedy isn't too keen on her, either. And he's very sure of that fact.
1. I

**Disclaimer –** _Teen Titans_ and its characters do not belong to me. I do not make any money off this fic, nor do I intend to, and I give full credit to their actual creators. I'd appreciate not being sued.

**A/N –** I offered to do some requests on Livejournal, and Shadow Diva asked for something Speedy/Bumblebee. I'm not sure if this really qualifies, but it was the best I could do in fewer than 700 words.

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_Denial_

© Scribbler, May 2005.

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"He's just so … _urgh_." For once, words failed Bumblebee. Instead, she formed her hands into claws and mimed throttling someone. Well, either that or playing a small banjo with a pickle up her nose. "Do you know what he did last week?"

Raven looked like she neither knew nor cared. She'd been left behind to meditate while the others were being taken on the grand tour of ETT – East Titans' Tower – but had spent about two minutes on that before Bumblebee, hungry for some female company, found her on the couch. Since the couch was technically hers, and Cyborg had been very stern about playing nice, Raven had forced herself to sit and listen while the other girl waxed lyrical on the disadvantages of being sharing quarters with four boys. Her patience, however, was wearing thin.

"He actually left his dirty, stinky socks hanging off my doorknob. And then he didn't get it when I was mad! It's bad enough they expect me to, like, be some master chef or something," Bumblebee griped, throwing her hands about like a vendor tossing bags of peanuts at a baseball game. "But doing their laundry? I mean, of course, I'm the obvious choice. I got a uterus, don't I?"

"I think - " Raven started, but was beginning to grasp that Bumblebee was more interested in venting than getting feedback.

"Aqualad's not so bad, and Mas y Menos are learning. At least they all _try_, y'know? But Speedy … ooh, so help me but I could smother that guy. He just refuses to learn. And he never listens when we're in combat. I'm leader. He's supposed to respect me, but all I get is 'Blah, blah, blah'." Her hands impersonated little mouths, while her eyes rolled. "Would it kill him to just say 'Sure, Bumblebee,' or 'That's a good idea, Bumblebee,' or 'Can I help you with that, Bumblebee?' Just once? Or put away his mirror at debriefings. Or wash up his own dishes. Or quit using the female bathroom and leaving the damn seat up! I know I'm not supposed to say it, since we're on the same team and all, but I really think I hate him, Ray-girl. He's such a self-centred, scruffy, know-it-all, conceited, chauvinistic _jerk_!"

"You know," Raven cut in, speaking quickly so she could get her point across, "there's a simple explanation for why you feel so strongly about Speedy in particular."

"Yeah. He's a dickwad and I hate him."

"No. another explanation."

"Which is?" Bumblebee raised a sceptical eyebrow.

Raven shrugged. "It's a well known psychological fact that there is a line so thin as to be almost negligible between the extreme emotions of love and hate. And the thing about extreme emotions is that they sometimes lead to denial, and a need to justify that denial through a hypercritical attitude."

For a second Bumblebee looked shocked. Her mouth hung open a little. Raven reached out with one hand to click it shut. It made a satisfying noise.

Then Bumblebee shook her head and reared back, wings flickering. "That's sick, you know that?"

"Denial."

"I am not!"

"A person in denial would deny it."

"I totally am not in denial!"

"You can't trust the word of a person in denial."

"You take that back!"

"And now we move on to the hyperactive emotional state. Which is indicative of - "

"I absotively posolutely _ain't _keen on Speedy!"

"-Denial."

Bumblebee grunted something not allowed on primetime and stalked off.

Raven did not smirk triumphantly. That would have been petty. Instead, she just assumed a lotus position and floated into her meditation regime.

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FINIS.

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	2. II

**A/N - **I originally planned for this to be just a one-shot, but Shadow Diva asked for another bit. So here 'tis.

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The door flew open with a loud crash as Bumblebee kicked it and stalked in. her entrance might have been impressive, had the door not rebounded off an ill-placed pile of magazines and hit her on the shin, so that she had to hobble-skip into the centre of the room with a pained expression on her face.

"Raven thinks I got a crush on you. But I don't."

Speedy, who had straightened his chair back to four legs when she burst in, now almost fell off it. "The hell?" he said, quite forgetting to yell at her for coming in unannounced. "How'd she get that idea?"

"Apparently, in her world hating someone's guts means you're secretly crushing on 'em." Bumblebee sniffed haughtily. "So I'm here to tell you that in my case, hating your guts don't mean I'm dreaming of hearts and candies. It just means I hate your guts."

He narrowed his eyemask at her. "And the reason you're telling me this is...?"

"So you don't get no ideas if it gets back to you through someone else. Oh, and you left these for the Magic Cleaning Fairy, only she's on strike." She threw a pair of muddy yellow boots onto the floor.

Speedy shrugged indifferently. "Okay. You done?"

"Sure." Bumblebee gritted her teeth. Once again, no apology for leaving his stuff outside her door. Had she not been so willing to leave his room, she might have challenged him on his lack of manners.

Speedy's room smelled mainly of haircare products and resin, the kind he used to keep his bow in working order, but it also smelled slightly of mouldy potato and elderly laundry, and the kind of person who threw all his socks at the wall and wore those that didn't stick. Anyone not familiar with his unique approach to hygiene would have found it difficult to reconcile the boy who made his uniform with a special pocket for a mirror and comb with the slob who lived in this dump.

Bumblebee wrinkled her nose, her wings aching to buzz and get some kind of air convection in here. It wasn't _healthy _to have things fermenting in the corner like that. And as for the range of old sandwiches, tacos and rotting aple cores on the windowsill … "You ever clean up in here, Bow-Boy?"

"Depends how you define 'clean'." He looked up from where his eyes had returned to his magazine. "You still here?"

She kicked a pile of clothes left mouldering by the foot of his bed. "This place is a health hazard," she pronounced.

"Oh, leave it out, Bee."

"There's things here that could eat us while we sleep, for all we know. You know how Cyborg's crew found that weird moth thingy in their place? And they're hella cleaner than your scrawny butt."

"Why Bee, I didn't know you'd examined my butt."

"Don't push it, chump. I ain't in the mood."

"Anyway," Speedy went on, "that larva wasn't just living there without them knowing. BB and Starfire kept it as a pet. And it all worked out in the end."

"Whatever," Bumblebee replied, annoyed at being contradicted. "Just clean this hole up, y'dig?"

"Did you drop out of a 70s porn flick, or what?"

The edges of her wings crackled with fury. "Clean. It. Up." Then she stalked out before she felt anymore like taking a bath in citric acid.

Speedy got up to close the door after she'd gone. "Bitch," he muttered. "Nice ass, but _what _a bitch." Then a thought struck him, and he gave a roguish smile. "Heh. Bumblebitch."

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End file.
